


Lettuce Begin

by luckyfilbert



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: AU, Awkwardness, Fluff, Lettuce AU, M/M, embrace it, yes it's a lettuce au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-12
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 02:06:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2292953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luckyfilbert/pseuds/luckyfilbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky’s head shoots up as the automatic doors swoosh open. As soon as he sees who it is, his head thonks down against his shelf with a groan. It’s Lettuce Boy.</p><p>He probably has a real name, a name that Bucky could find out with not-too-much difficulty since Natasha on the express register would tell him if he asked—she was happy enough to tell him his eyes were blue, “a deep, azure blue,” she had said, smirking, letting the words roll languidly off her tongue and clearly enjoying the effect they were having. “A fluid blue. An ocean blue”—a name that’s more appropriate than Boy since Lettuce Boy is inches taller than Bucky and really, really—well, let’s just say muscles like that don’t come from lettuce—but Lettuce Boy is a snarky little name, a betrayal of a name, and it gives Bucky a righteous satisfaction in his gut because that’s how he felt when he realized that his sunshine-haired, ocean-eyed crushtomer and the dickwad who’d been leaving lettuces all over the store were one and the same.</p><p>Betrayed. He felt betrayed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Bucky works at a grocery store. Steve is the hot customer who repeatedly comes into the store and picks up a lettuce and then halfway through the store decides he doesn't want the lettuce and puts it back on the shelf next to him regardless of what aisle he's in GOD DAMMIT.
> 
> [AU prompt](http://leafyknockouts.tumblr.com/post/91739429515/more-annoying-asshole-aus-please-like-o-kept) from tumblr user leafyknockouts.
> 
> Started as a drabble for tumblr user 0tterp0p. Then it grew. It grew so very very much. Like a lettuce.

Bucky's head shoots up as the automatic doors swoosh open. As soon as he sees who it is, his head thonks down against his shelf with a groan. It's Lettuce Boy. 

He probably has a real name, a name that Bucky could find out with not-too-much difficulty since Natasha on the express register would tell him if he asked--she was happy enough to tell him his eyes were blue, "a deep, azure blue," she had said, smirking, letting the words roll languidly off her tongue and clearly enjoying the effect they were having. "A fluid blue. An ocean blue"--a name that's more appropriate than Boy since Lettuce Boy is inches taller than Bucky and really, really--well, let's just say muscles like that don't come from lettuce--but Lettuce Boy is a snarky little name, a betrayal of a name, and it gives Bucky a righteous satisfaction in his gut because that's how he felt when he realized that his sunshine-haired, ocean-eyed crushtomer and the dickwad who'd been leaving lettuces all over the store were one and the same. 

Betrayed. He felt betrayed.

Without really looking, Bucky slides another can of pinto beans onto the shelf. He watches Lettuce Boy from behind his fringe. ("Bangs," Natasha would say. _"Fringe,"_ Bucky whined, brushing it back, "It's fringe, it's manly." And then, "It's a reason to fire you if it keeps getting in the bulk edamame," Manager Pierce had swooped by to say, and that was that.) Bucky peers through his hair and wonders what Lettuce Boy would think of his fringe. Would he smile indulgently as he slid his fingers along a strand, tucking it behind Bucky's ear and leaning in for a soft yet stirring kiss? Or would he _march right to the produce section to pick up a lettuce and carry it all over the store like a lumpy green security blanket god dammit_. 

Abandoning his box of pinto beans, Bucky skitters after Lettuce Boy. 

He swings around the produce corner and slides to a halt in front of the tomatoes. The tomatoes need adjusting, right? That one's gone moldy. And that one. Upon reflection, Bucky thinks Lettuce Boy might be onto something; he wouldn't buy produce from this store, anyway. But then from the corner of his eye he sees Lettuce Boy reach for a lettuce and all justifications are out.

"Put down that hapless romaine!" Bucky surprises himself by shouting as he lunges across the produce section.

Lettuce Boy raises a slow eyebrow, apparently not perturbed at being lunged at. "...hapless?" He'd been hot before but that expression made him _cute,_ and it isn't fair that Lettuce Boy is _hot_ and _cute,_ and that Bucky is destroying any chance he ever had, pulverizing it like kale in a Vita-Mix. 

"I'm." Bucky sputters. "Very busy with a. Shakespeare seminar. this term. Just--put it down, okay?" 

Carefully, slowly, Lettuce Boy lowers the romaine into his basket. He lifts his empty hands. "Okay?" 

"No." Bucky pulls the romaine out of Lettuce Boy's basket and sets it firmly on the shelf with its brethren. "No." Damn, he'd gotten really close to Lettuce Boy to do that. He smelled really nice. "No." And now he's said 'no' a lot of times, so he wrenches his face into a grimace and crosses his arms and says "No, it's not okay, because you're just going to carry it around and then leave it someplace, like next to the toilet cleaners or by the--pads or in the bakery like a--fucking unripe loaf of bread, and I'll have to find it and put it away because Pierce is just _looking_ for an excuse to fire me, and why do you even carry it around, you never buy it anyway."

"I. Oh." Lettuce Boy looks even more confused. And cute. Dammit. "I guess I always get the lettuce first, and then don't want other things to. squish it? So I take it out? I didn't realize I was forgetting it every single week, though." He smiles sheepishly, giving himself a little dimple, and that is hot and cute at the same time and just not fair. His eyes really are blue. Azure. Fluid and ocean-like. And surprisingly warm and--kind. Bucky swallows. He is far too close to forgiving Lettuce Boy his mortal sin. 

"You've got a--" Lettuce Boy starts, reaching towards Bucky. Bucky breaks out of his dazed stare with a jerk and then freezes again, mesmerized, as Lettuce Boy lifts a hand to Bucky's face and touches his hair, running his finger down a strand of bang, pulling it gently. out of Bucky's mouth. 

Bucky's face burns hot enough to boil spinach. He tugs at the soggy strand of hair. A drop of spit smacks onto his shoe.

"Hey." Somehow, impossibly, Lettuce Boy is still standing there. He gives Bucky that lopsided sheepish smile and, under the acute desire to be back shelving beans, Bucky feels something important in his chest wobble. "Do you know if that Starbucks by the checkstand is still open?"

"It closes at 7 but if you ask me to coffee there Natasha will never let me forget it," Bucky says without thinking, and then clamps his teeth together. "I mean. You didn't. Um. It closes at 7." He shoves the romaine back in Lettuce Boy's basket. "Here's your lettuce. Try not to forget it. I will... I'm going. Now. Sorry." 

He wheels around, almost collides with a display of croutons, and speedwalks back to his pinto beans. He shoves cans onto the shelf. Furiously. He has never been this invested in cans. He keeps his head down and shelves can after can; he hears the scuff of shoes but he doesn't look up; the beep of a register but he doesn't look up; the whoosh of the doors but he doesn't look up, he doesn't look up, he doesn't look up--

"Hey, Bean Boy."

He looks up. Natasha is lounging against the corner shelf, smacking her against-store-policy gum. "Can I call you Bean Boy? Since he's Lettuce Boy, and I feel like a little produce-based nickname theme is just what this needs to be even cuter, but you're kinda more canned up with everything, get it?" 

"Nat," he groans, leaning his head against the fully-beaned shelf. "I fucked up. I talked to him and I was horrible. He was horrible. How does anyone not realize they forget their lettuce every week? Why do you have that?"

"Hm?" Natasha tosses the rumpled romaine between her hands. "Lettuce Boy left it. Something about not wanting to squish it."

"God," Bucky groans again. "God."

"He does kind of look like one," Natasha agrees. "You'll have to let me know how he is after your date."

"Yeah, as if--" The lettuce comes flying at him and he grabs it on reflex. A smudge of black catches his eye. Bucky looks down at the lettuce. It's-- "Oh God." 

"Find something else to say before tonight, maybe," Natasha winks at him and saunters away. 

Bucky stares down at the Sharpie'd romaine for several gaping seconds. Then he whips out his phone and keys in the number. 

_u forgot ur lettuce_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on tumblr!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a prompt fill for tumblr user spiderfire47. It was supposed to be a vampire AU but in a grand triumph of vegetarianism, the salubrious properties of The Lettuce AU overpowered the blood and subsumed it.

"Hi." Lettuce Boy’s voice is softer than he remembered. Deeper. Bucky smiles a little nervously (a little. Just a _little_ nervous. There’s nothing wrong with being nervous on his first date with crushtomer-turned-lettuce-rogue-turned-maybe-actual-boyfriend??-oh-god) and is rewarded with that dimpling smile from Lettuce Boy. Oh God. 

"Hi," Bucky chokes in return, very coolly. 

"I’m glad you found this place," Lettuce Boy says in a rich, chocolatey drawl. He takes a languid sip of coffee and Bucky watches his lips against the mug, his throat long and smooth as he swallows, and snaps his eyes back to his own mug because oh god oh god oh god he’s out of his depth when did Lettuce Boy get this—this— _hot_ doesn’t cover it anymore. “ _Hawt,_ " Natasha would have said, in the italics, but Bucky doesn’t think even that is enough. 

"It’s one of my favorite haunts," Lettuce Boy continues, emphasizing the word. "The pre-war architecture, you know." 

Bucky moved east five years ago and in the intervening time has never bothered to figure out if _pre-war_ is an advantage or even which war it’s referring to. The cafe is very brick-y and a little dark. He looks around with a vaguely appreciative glance—the same expression he gives Natasha when she makes him sample organic roasts—and gives a noncommital murmur. His hands are really. shaking. He is not playing this cool. He wraps his palms around his mug and takes his own languid sip of coffee. It dribbles down his chin. 

Lettuce Boy’s eyes follow the liquid as it trails down Bucky’s throat. “Oh dear,” he says calmly, and also, it occurs to Bucky with a drip of fear that slides iced-coffee-like into his gut, like every white-cat-stroking villain in every movie Bucky has ever seen. Bucky grips the mug tighter. “Oh dear,” Lettuce Boy repeats, and lifts a hand to wipe the coffee away with one soft finger. 

Bucky shoots back in his chair. A vein pulses in his throat and there are a lot of reactions going in his body that have nothing to do—okay maybe a _little_ to do—with the gorgeous man sitting across from him. His thoughts beat in his skull like a mocha smoothie in a blender. Gorgeous is a much better word that hawt. More classy. He should tell Natasha. He should. He. 

Lettuce Boy locks eyes with Bucky and holds his gaze. He raises his finger to his mouth and licks away the coffee dribble. Everything in Bucky slows. down. 

"Uh," he finds himself saying. "Uh, what is. what," and then at Lettuce Boy’s raised eyebrow some of the spell is broken and words flop out, " _What_ is going on, I thought you were cute, you were _cute_ —I mean also hot—but you were just cute and you forgot lettuce and you laughed like I was funny and your eyes matched the aisle placards and now you’re—this—” Failing words to describe _this,_ Bucky flaps his hands at Lettuce Boy’s affably bemused face— “you’re not even Lettuce Boy anymore, you’re like—Coffee— _God_ —and I don’t understand _what_ is—or _why_ —and—and—” 

He clutches his mug like a tether and closes his mouth around what wanted to come out next, a very whimpery _I wanted my Lettuce Boy._ He takes another, more careful and less seductive, sip of coffee and tries not to look too much like a child denied an Italian soda. 

"Ah," Coffee God breathes, as if Bucky’s outburst has explained everything. "Well, you see," and he gestures toward the window. 

Bucky doesn’t see. He looks back at Coffee God, eyes narrowed so he looks thoughtful instead of clueless, and back to the window. His reflection stares back at him in equal bafflement, but aside from that he doesn’t 

see

anything. 

Oh. 

"I’m very sorry about this," Coffee God says, snapping his jaw and baring too-long incisors. Bucky has enough time to think, with a surprising amount of indignation given the circumstances, _no you’re not_ and then—

___

Bucky bursts awake on the couch. 

"Immortality makes me feel so _old,_ " his laptop says, and Bucky claps a hand over his chest to hold his heart in place. He wheezes in air. "Okay," he pants to himself. "Okay. No more Being Human before bed." 

He catches his breath enough to pause Netflix and shift the laptop off him. Another few breaths and—well—it can’t hurt. 

He finds his phone under the second couch cushion. With very remarkably few second thoughts, he pulls up Lettuce Boy. 

_ur not a vampire r u_

And then, because that was maybe a little abrupt, 

_:-)_

_that’s a p incongruous use of a :-) bean boy_

Bucky’s breath goes out in a whoosh. 

_haha sry_

Well that’s settled. Bucky sits back and smiles at the image of his cute and definitely-not-vampiric new (boy??)friend taking the time to type “incongruous” but not “pretty.” Then the rest of the message sinks in. 

_wait_

He’s still trying to figure out how many question marks he needs to adequately express his disgust (because Bean Boy?? Really??? that’s not even a thing!!) when Lettuce Boy sends back

_oh yeah nat’s in history w me!_

_she’s been telling me all about u :-)_

_(see that’s how u use a :-) )_

_THIS IS WORSE THAN VAMPIRES_ Bucky sends before he can think about it. He groans and throws his phone aside at Lettuce Boy’s _???_

Then he scrambles after it and pulls up Natasha. 

_fairs fair. give me everything u have on lettuce boy_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come find me on tumblr and keep this madness going!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr user elyaphant asked for a date chapter, and I . . .
> 
> did not oblige

Bucky is not very good at this. 

"Shelves, Nat," he grumbles for the dozenth time. "I do shelves. Cans." 

"Beans," she supplies, grinning too much. 

"Not all this—" he gestures to the vicinity at large— " _health_.” 

He scowls into the bag of farm-fresh green beans Nat plops on his scale. He extends the scowl to the rest of the market stand, the tubs of corn, the piles of grapes, the little bins of tomatoes. The street full of other little farm stands, and whole-grain noodle carts, and flowers, and. regional honey? local rabbit meat?? And all the bustling, healthy, _happy_ people around them. 

"Hippie yuppie canning crazies," he mutters. "And their over-priced dirt effluence."

"Not over-priced." Nat does the math herself and unfolds bills into the cash drawer. "I’d say it’s exactly the price you pay for getting chatty with your Lettuce Boy on Pierce’s shift." 

Bucky swats Nat’s hand away from the cash box. “Isn’t your boyfriend bringing me coffee.”

"You know Clint." Nat smiles. Bucky does, indeed, know Clint. "Or maybe he was sabotaged by a chatty barista."

Bucky considers letting it go for a valiant three seconds, but, “Pierce didn’t fire me for getting chatty,” he corrects, with the maximum of his dignity. “He fired me for Defacement of Store Property.” 

****

Nat burbles a snort. Bucky sighs and waves a hand, “go ahead,” and she pours out a laugh with more relish than any of these hippie canning fanatics could make in a month. 

Bucky taps at the cash drawer very patiently. “Okay you’re holding up the line.” 

"There is no line, Bean Boy." Lacking chewing gum, Nat snaps a bean in his face. "Or should I say Lettuce Defacer." 

Bucky rubs his face, then remembers and doses up with organic hand sanitizer. 

"So." Nat leans in closer. "Speaking of lettuce. And _defacing_.” 

"Where is Clint."

"Nowhere in sight," Nat breathes, just as Clint’s voice rises over the crowds like a crow over cornfields. Bucky lifts his eyebrows at Nat. 

"But like, it’s such a waste of the bean in a flat-base filter, you know," Clint is saying.

"Cold brew, man, it’s all about the cold brew," an unfamiliar voice replies, and Bucky peers across the bins of potatoes to see Clint carrying two coffee caddies toward them, waving them in dangerously animated conversation with—well that’s just not fair. 

"Do I spy a Coffee Boy?" Nat asks. "Because Bean Boy will theme with that too, if you want to switch."

"Isn’t Clint your Coffee Boy," Bucky mutters, eyeing Clint and his new friend as they weave through the stand.

"Buck!" Clint calls out when he’s no more than two feet away. "I got you coffee."

"You got the entire market coffee." Bucky eyes the eight caddied cups and two travel mugs in the new kid’s hands.

"I’m _sampling,_ " Clint insists. He sets one caddy on the cash table and holds the other out to Bucky. "Colombian or Kenyan?"

_Both, god, please,_ Bucky almost says, but he screws up his face and squints between the four cups of steaming salvation and guesses, “Kenyan?”

"Peaberry or AA?"

The new guy rolls his eyes. “I told him to practice restraint,” he cuts in. “I’m Sam, by the way. I’d shake hands but—” he lifts the two mugs.

Nat plucks one from his hand. “Solved. I’m Natasha. This is Bean Boy.”

Bucky glowers at her over the tray of unattainably specific caffeine, but she’s still looking at Sam, hiding her half-smile behind a long draught of coffee. 

"How you doin," Sam drawls, as Clint stops quizzing Bucky long enough to say "Wait, Nat, that’s mine I can’t drink out of this paper—" and Bucky taps his fingers rapidly against the cash box and mutters "you’re blocking the—" just as a voice that Bucky definitely has not spent every evening trying and failing to replicate in his mind says, "Sam!"

Something inside Bucky’s chest cavity flips over. Lettuce Boy. Lettuce Boy is here. And calling for. Sam. 

Bucky shakes his hair over his eyes and tries to shrink to about the height of the dill stalks in the corner. Or the basil.

"Hey man, where’d you go?" That’s Sam. Bucky peers through his fringe and watches Sam’s booted feet turn towards Lettuce Boy’s grayed New Balance. A pair of Birkenstocks joins the mix as Clint says "Here, try this kochere kore," and do they _all_ know Lettuce Boy, Lettuce Boy was supposed to be _his,_ and then that voice says “Hold on,” and the New Balance are walking toward—toward—

"Do you know how hard it is to find lettuce in this place?" 

Bucky looks up. Lettuce Boy is standing in front of him, so close Bucky can see flecks of gray in his ocean-dark eyes, holding a cup of coffee and smiling warmer than the steam rising from it.

"It’s um." Bucky drops his gaze and concentrates very hard on fidgeting with the cash box clasp. "End of season."

"Bummer. I’ve been trying really hard to remember it."

Bucky unhitches the lid and bounces it open and closed against his finger. “Uh,” he says. “Um.”

Through his bangs Bucky sees Lettuce Boy edge a step closer, which shouldn’t even be possible since he was already standing chest-tighteningly close to the table, and Bucky can almost _hear_ the dimple in the smile in his voice as he tilts his head and says, “I haven’t seen you at the store lately.”

"I." Bucky bounces the lid faster. "Uh."

"I was looking for you."

Bucky’s whole body stutters and the lid slams down on his finger and “Ow!”

"Jeez! Are you—" 

Lettuce Boy somehow loses the coffee and grabs Bucky’s hand before Bucky can do more than blink. He quakes through another of those full-body shudders. He looks at his hand cradled in Lettuce Boy’s—ears barely registering Clint’s “aw, coffee, no”—and watches soft long fingers touch his carefully, tracing the barely reddened pad of his index finger. 

Bucky’s hand shivers rebelliously and Lettuce Boy holds it a little firmer. “You okay?” he asks, looking up at Bucky through eyelashes long as soft spring shoots.

"Yy." Bucky swallows. "Yeah. Fine."

"You sure?" he asks, and Bucky could sink in those berry-blue eyes forever—until Nat sings out "You’re blocking the line," and Sam leans in to deposit a bag of tomatoes on the scale between them.

"This guy memorized your shifts," Sam tells Bucky with a look of pure glee, and Nat turns to Lettuce Boy with "Did you know he had a _dream_ about you?” 

Bucky can feel himself turning redder than the tomatoes. 

"More noticed," Lettuce Boy cuts in. "Noticed. More than. actually memorized."

Forget tomatoes, Bucky is redder than radishes, and he should really say something about Nat’s dream line but somehow “it was a nightmare” or “that was the vampire thing” isn’t what he wants to add to this conversation, so he rubs at his finger and tries to look anywhere that isn’t Lettuce Boy, until he’s saved by Clint peering over Bucky’s table and saying, after a gulp of Colombia Narino, “Isn’t that lettuce?”

Not saved, Bucky amends. Very, very not saved.

"You do have lettuce?" Lettuce Boy asks, looking far too excited for someone who has never managed to complete the purchasing of one.

"Not a lot of lettuce," Clint adds, compounding the situation. "Just one."

They’re all looking at him now, so Bucky fixes his eyes on the far corner of the stall and tells it, “I was saving it.”

Nat quirks an eyebrow. “Thief.”

"I _bought it,_ " Bucky grumbles automatically. "Was gonna give it to—" before remembering who’s still standing there. He swallows the rest of the sentence but, like a rainbird, his eyes flick from the corner to Lettuce Boy’s startled face. 

"But you. You didn’t know I was. here," Lettuce Boy points out, shifting from foot to foot and staring at Bucky with just enough shocked fondness to give Bucky the courage to say, all at once, 

"I was going to ask you to coffee and give the lettuce to you then so I could play it off as a joke if you weren’t into coffee with me but also see you again if you were. Or. Just get coffee," Bucky finishes in a mutter toward the table. The table covered in coffee. The irony is not lost on him.

He takes a breath and glances up in time to see Lettuce Boy smile like the sun rising. “I’m into coffee with you.”

"Really?" Bucky squeaks before he can hold it in, and Lettuce Boy’s smile goes even warmer, and even Clint lunging between them to rattle off acceptable cafes isn’t enough to cloud his mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I go to the farmer's market most weeks and lately it's been really hard to find lettuce. Enter Lettuce Boy.

**Author's Note:**

> There is work inspired by this piece! The amazing and aforementioned [0tterp0p](http://0tterp0p.tumblr.com) illustrated [this gem](http://0tterp0p.tumblr.com/post/97541363875/i-drew-a-bit-of-self-indulgent-fanart-for).


End file.
